Light changes everything, p.21
Light Changes Everything, page 21
Granny’s memoirs were so clear and plain, like I could hear her voice at that second thundering in my brain:
And one of my great-grandmothers hid in the secret room behind a room, where her husband had built them a wall. It didn’t matter if it was soldiers nor Kiowa Indians coming up the road, she was safe, and there was food down there and a water trickle, too. Don’t ever live in no house without there’s a hiding place to go to. Make sure you’ve got a secret place.
The bright sunlight outside played tricks on my eyes in the small room, and it was dark as a cave. So I stepped to the back wall and saw where there was old tack and discarded feed sacks against it, a pack rat’s nest in a corner. But there was one opening, about three boards wide, where no trash lay against the wall. Three boards was enough space to get a bucket through.
I knocked on the wall. “Ezra? Zachary? Are you in there?”
Silence.
“I found you. Nobody is around but me. Speak out. It’s Mary Pearl.”
“It ain’t,” a voice said through the wall. “You don’t sound like Mary Pearl. Anybody comes here messin’ with us, we’re gonna get shot. You ain’t Mary Pearl. Or if you are, tell us the name you said we weren’t to call you ever again.”
“You called me Imp. I hated that name, remember? And Zachary says ‘dammit to Caledonia’ when he gets riled.” As the two of them hollered with joy, I put my head near the floor, sprinkled with mouse droppings, and called through it, “Can you crawl through here?”
“No. There’s barbwire all hammered in on this side. Iron bars like a jail.”
“I didn’t bring an axe or anything to tear down boards. I’ll get a horse and we’ll pull down the wall.”
“I’m telling you, this place has got parts of an old jail cell on this side. It’s iron everywhere. If you pull down the wall it will crush us to death.”
“Who’s that talking?” I asked.
“Ezra.”
“What’s wrong with Zachary?”
“He’s starved. He cain’t eat the trash they’re feeding us. He ain’t dead, though, are ya, Zack?”
I said, “I’m going to go get a rope. Don’t give up now. I’ll get you out.” Even though I said that, I had no idea how I would. I scrambled back up the hill and fetched two good long lengths of rope and the lunch pails Rachel had packed. I passed them through the opening. “You boys want this?”
“Yes! Oh, yes. But you be careful, Mary Pearl. That woman only left here a minute ago, did you see her? She’ll be back in a little while with our supper. She brings some slop in the morning and some other at night. She just come to get the bucket. Expects us to eat from it like hogs. They’ll be back.”
“Make sure you hold it with the paper it’s wrapped in, in case you have some kind of filth on your hands from being dirty. I know you’re hungry, but eat it slow.”
I studied the room inside, then walked around the outside of it. I took the butt of my pistol and broke out the glass in the window where I’d seen Zack. I heard them cry out with glee, and sigh for the open air. A wretched smell came from the open window, and I began to wonder if they had any other opening where air could move through. Why, they could die of contagion in their own mess kept that way. It wasn’t fit for any animal. “What’s your ceiling like, boys? Is it iron bars, too?”
“No, but it’s too high. We tried to reach it already. They caught us once, getting away. Beat us pretty bad. They said they’d visited Ma and she’d agreed to send the money to get us home. But no one came. Zack’s real sick, too.”
I gulped. “What’s wrong, Zack?”
A voice said, “Just can’t keep my dinner down. Ever’ time they bring us something, I can’t eat it and if I do it comes back on me.”
Shuddering with sadness, I said, “Pa’s been trying to find you and pay money for six weeks. The whole countryside went all the way to Sonora hunting you.”
“Really? These people told us today Mama had changed her mind and now no one was coming for us. That we were their slaves from now on. One day they tell us we’re saved, the next that we’re doomed. They’re gonna hang us if they don’t get some money or we don’t starve first.”
“I’m going up the hill to get my horses. Don’t give up now.”
I pulled the string back and chose a larger horse, the one I’d left without a pack for the boys to ride. Buster had been sired by Aunt Sarah’s Belgian. He had sturdy legs and a big chest. We’d had to have a large saddle made for his wide back and I was glad I’d brought him then. I pulled him and Fixie followed obediently, without even being tied. When I got the horse next to the shed, I hitched a loop in one of the ropes and caught that ridge pole coming off the shed with it. First thing I did was climb onto the saddle and stand up in the seat of it, trying to see as far around as I could. The old couple were headed this way, him on a burro and carrying a shotgun slung over his back, her running alongside carrying a bucket. She had a rifle as well, strapped across her bosom like a bandito. I said, “We don’t have much time. You boys cover your eyes. I see a pole coming out of the roof. When I get this tied, you get up against the back wall.”
Without another word I dallied the lariat to the saddle horn and started edging Buster to pull. Buster tugged and I heard wood creak and splinter. Pretty soon, that pole and half the roof came off in a dusty explosion of flaking wood and dirt. I stood as tall as I could in the stirrups to see. Now the old people were running this way. But they were both slow and plump, limping, but still coming. The woman threw the bucket aside and shouted something.
I ran to the shed. “You boys hurt?”
“No, Imp. Toss that rope down here. I’ll tie it around my waist and carry Zack. I’m so skinny I could slip through a knot without Zack sitting on ’er to plug the hole.”
That was my brother. Ever telling a joke or pulling my leg. I pushed Buster back to the shed and threw the rope down inside. “Holler!” I shouted. “Move, move, boys. They’re coming for us!”
“All right, pull!” Ezra said. I patted Buster’s rump and he moved forward. The hardest part was to keep it slow so he wouldn’t just pop them out of there and yank them to the ground.
In almost no time I saw Zack’s head at the top of the wall. He looked gaunt and thin, and his hair was long and filthy. I smiled from ear to ear and tears streamed down my face. “Come on, hurry. I’ll get you down on this side.” I tethered Buster to a rock. It wasn’t heavy enough to hold him, but long as the horse thought he was tethered, that’s all I needed. Then I ran to the shed and held up my arms.
“I’m mighty stinky.”
“I don’t care. Put your feet on my hands here. That’s as high as I can reach.” I heard the shotgun blast, but they hadn’t hit any of us. Zack swung his bare feet over the edge. I caught him clumsily and eased him to the ground just as a clap of thunder reminded me to look toward the southern sky. “Rain’s coming boys. Come on, Ezra!”
By the time they were both on the ground, I was so happy I could burst. They drank my canteen dry. Poor Zack really looked bad. Ezra offered to ride Buster and help keep Zack in the saddle with him. “Come on, boys. I’m going to circle way around. That hill is faster, but you’d have to walk down the other side and it’s perilous.” I didn’t wait for any answer. I pushed on ahead pulling the pack horse and Ezra had enough gumption to keep up.
When we got to the side of the hill I could see a shallow arroyo we could cross to get up the other side. I turned and looked behind me. The old woman saw the shack in shreds, then took the rifle off her shoulder. From the south the wind began to blow. It smelled of rain. From the north, here came Papa along with Clover, Charlie, and Brody. From the east, a band of vaqueros Mexicanos on black stallions rode hell-for-leather toward us.
For a second I couldn’t speak. My throat had gone to cotton and my breath was stopped. The old man fired the shotgun again and I felt something whip at my skirt, but it didn’t hit my leg. Still, I was frozen stiff. I thought I’d died in my saddle. I looked back at the old woman, who was taking aim toward us with the rifle. I saw the sick hate in her eyes, and called, “Abuela! Don’t shoot! No dispares! I’ll give you money. Tu dinero! No dispares!”
Charlie must have heard my words, for he kicked his horse into a reckless gallop straight for us.
Lightning forked across the sky, filling the heavens with an unnatural yellow light. The thunder came right upon it, deafening us and making Fixie jump sideways. I circled her around and clapped Buster on the rump soundly. The old man held up a machete as if to throw it. I sent my hunting knife in his direction, fast as the snap of a whip. It found purchase deep in his right leg.
I drew my pistol, planning to fire toward the old woman if I had to.
I didn’t hear it.
The rifle she carried already had a trail of smoke streaming from the barrel. I saw Ezra slump and slither from the saddle like a loose sack of beans. Zachary screamed for all he was worth. Even though Fixie was dancing all over, I could see red spraying from Ezra’s skull.
“Mujer del diablo!” I screamed. “Devil hag!” I kicked Fixie so hard she bolted forward. I ran her straight at the demon holding the smoking rifle. She was raising it again, pulling back the bolt, aiming. I fired three times. Fixie like to chucked me into a prickly pear for doing it.
I got off the saddle and stood there, flaming heart and all, ready to pull the trigger again. The pistol felt warm and alive, powerful like nothing else ever had, like a piece of my arm I’d never known was there. The old man, walking with my blade sticking from his thigh, threw down his empty shotgun, ripped the rifle from under the fat carcass of the woman and raised it, but fumbled trying to aim. In a heartbeat I heard gunfire behind me and the old man rolled to the ground on top of the woman.
Charlie’s horse stopped behind me so hard he might have been bulldogging a cow, for his hooves shot gravel and dirt all over me.
Pa met me at Ezra’s poor form. “He’s breathing!” Pa shouted. “He’s breathing.”
I could hardly bring myself to look at the wound. Part of my brother’s skull was blown away over his left eye, and the blood shot up like a fountain.
Zachary had finally gotten Buster to turn around and came back with him, slid from the saddle to the ground and wailed, his face buried in his filthy hands and his hands in the dirt. He raised his head and dirt fell from his mouth, but still he screamed and wailed on.
Charlie looked like a man possessed. He mounted up and rode out to meet the Mexican soldados or whatever they were. Clover followed him, whipping his horse in a fury. Brody’s eyes went from me to Ezra to Charlie making dust. He stayed.
Lightning flashed again overhead, and the air took on a steaming breathlessness. The sky inhaling, getting ready to unleash a great storm upon us. “Blankets,” I shouted at Pa. “I have blankets?” Nothing made any sense. Ezra didn’t need a blanket. Pa said something and I saw his lips move, but I couldn’t hear. My mouth hung open. “What? What!”
Pa shook my shoulders. “Get the blankets,” he said slowly, very loudly.
I ran to the pack horse. Pulled everything loose so it tumbled to the desert floor. “Cut this and wrap him. Wrap his head.”
Pa already had his knife ready. He made wide strips and as I carefully lifted Ezra’s head, Pa wrapped his wound. He said something to me again.
“What, Pa? I can’t hear you. I can’t hear you.”
Thunder banged overhead. I heard that. But Pa’s voice, right in my face, made no sound. Ezra breathed. Zachary’s mouth was open, but if he was crying I heard nothing at all except a buzzing like bees on a swarm flight.
Pa shouted, “We are closer to Benson than to home. We will take him to Doctor Pardee.”
“Benson,” I said numbly. “Yes. Pardee. Is that what you said?” I stood.
I saw Pa’s mouth moving, but I couldn’t hear him. Was it thunder? Gunfire? Papa shook my arm and with his face close to my nose he put his hands on both sides of my head and looked directly into my eyes. He hollered at me, but all I heard was silence.
I sat back at his side. “This is my fault. I should have shot first.”
And then I could hear him. “You couldn’t. You sit here with him and I’ll kick some boards loose. We’ll have to sort of tie him in place. Papoose-style.”
“Papoose. Ezra, don’t you fear. You’re a long, skinny papoose and I have lost my mind. I’m deaf. Oh, mercy, I’m stone-deaf, Pa.” I covered my eyes with the heels of my hands and rocked back and forth, sitting there in the gravel and thorns next to him. I wasn’t crying. I couldn’t. I was just trying to block the image of Ezra’s open, bleeding head, but it was burned onto the backs of my eyes like a brand that will never go away nor heal.
Something landed, heavy, on the top of my head. Water. Rain. Where was my hat? Zachary was holding it, crushed, to his face. Arizona rain was the kind of rain I never saw in Illinois. This was the front of the storm, where the drops fall large as a hen’s egg, ten feet apart. Huge blobs of water clopped on the dirt, making thunking sounds like the very ground was a hollow drum. Fixie messed around and shied; didn’t like being socked in the eye with an unexpected slap of water.
Pa laid boards and wove my ropes through them as if he’d been doing that all his life—making baskets out of boards. We strung them to the back of Pa’s saddle. The breeze cooled. The rain might not come this way. We were just about to return to Ezra’s side to raise him onto the basket when a loud voice called, “Alto!”
We were surrounded by the Mexican caballeros. They wore expensive sombreros and saddles with silver conchos and jingles. Their boots glistened in the shadowy broken light from the sun poking through the clouds. Pa didn’t look up. I stood, expecting to face an army with drawn weapons. No one was aiming at us, however.
“Señor,” a man called. “What are you doing?”
“I’m busy. Go away,” Papa said. “Mary Pearl, you get his feet while I steady Ezra’s head.” I ignored the Mexican men and did as Papa said.
On some signal the whole bunch of them dismounted. They walked toward us. Where were Charlie and Clover? Had they been murdered and left in the desert, too? I held Ezra’s legs while Pa tied him gently, using the blanket under him for a padding, and we got him mounted on there and strung up like a roasted chicken so he wouldn’t tumble off.
One of the Mexican men came toward us. “Señor, if you will permit. The end must be wider. That is too narrow. It will tip and drag him.” He gestured as he said, “Compadres, aquí.”
The men pushed me out of the way, but not roughly. Pa stood, tears on his cheeks. Two of the men got more boards and used their own lariats to tie a wide runner at the foot end of our travois rig. They were right, I saw. If we’d moved him at all, the one Pa made might have rolled over and dragged Ezra face down. These men knew what they were doing.
My face hurt, but I didn’t weep. I went to Brody. “Where’s Charlie? Dead?”
“No. He went to fetch your ma and sisters.” Thunder interrupted him for a moment. He spoke into Zack’s ear. “Hold on there, buckaroo, you’re sliding.” Then he talked to the rest of us. “He and Clove’ll bring the ladies to Benson in a surrey and meet us there at Pardee’s office.”
I eyed the sky. “It’ll be dark or pouring by then.”
“Likely.”
“Pa, let me set this slicker over Ezra’s face,” I said. I fixed it over him, but there was nothing to tie it on with that wouldn’t press down on him. Ezra was still breathing. I pulled the pins from my hair. I bent them into hooks and rings and poked that slicker, looping the rings around the ropes of Ezra’s papoose carrier. My hair fell down my back in front of all these men, shameful as a hussy, but I didn’t care.
Brody said to me, “You want me to see you home?”
“No. I’m going with my brother.”
“All right. What about this one? He’s wore to the bone. Sound asleep.”
“He can ride with me. I’ll hold him in the saddle. What about all these men? They look like they’re here for business.”
“I’ll tell you on the way, but they’re all right.”
When the caballeros were satisfied that Ezra would travel as safely as possible, they all mounted up. Pa did, too. Brody held my horse’s reins and then passed Zachary up. I held him facing me and he slept, smelly and bony, against my swelling body. I still didn’t know exactly what was going on, but the band of men rode up ahead of us as a group. I rode drag with Brody at my side.
Turned out, Pa going to Marsh’s Stage and Mail Station was what saved the day. The stationmaster had seen that old man hanging around every other day. When Pa asked about him, the stationmaster knew how to send a message to Maldonado, who was not in Agua Prieta at all. He was living on a ranch in Sonora, Mexico. Most important, he had nothing to do with the kidnapping or ransom requests. That was why he sent this string of compadres, his fellows, to assure us he was busily conducting farming and mining in Mexico. This whole plot was cooked up by the cheerful old couple squatting in the Maldonado hacienda and their greedy sons, who were the ones waiting on the road to Agua Prieta for the money. The oldest son was the one the comandante had shot. They had followed us back, but had not jumped us because they didn’t expect we’d have come in such numbers.
“Do you trust them, Brode?” I asked.
Brody twisted his mouth a little. He needed a shave. I’d never seen him looking so ragged. “’Bout as far as I could throw ’em. But we’ll watch and see.”
